Dear Friends,
Today starts a few long days for me. It feels like the last month has had a number of them. I do this to myself, but I’m not complaining. I’m glad to be creating and learning and having some fun along the way.
We are back in action at Club Placebo tonight. I’m interviewing Cris Kirkwood about the early days of the “Phoenix scene” and history of the Meat Puppets. It will definitely be interesting. Cris tells a good story, that’s for sure.
I also have about 14 parents to see today at school. Parent/teacher conferences have been going pretty well. Several no-shows yesterday, but that is to be expected. My students have busy parents who are hustling to make a life. I get it.
Last night we had a nice dinner with my mom and stepdad. It was good to spend some time together and the kids seemed to have a great time. Dinner was excellent, too. Otro never disappoints.
*****
I picked up Punk and Disorderly on vinyl pretty early on in my punk rock life. The compilation was almost entirely English bands, but it did have Dead Kennedys, too. I loved the Dead Kennedys in those days, but I quickly realized that I have a real soft spot for English street punk bands.
The beginning of the comp is classic. “Last Rockers” by Vice Squad has a beginning that I will never get tired of, even if I live to be over a hundred.
“Stepping through the rubble, my head’s in a spin/I hear them fighting the war that no one can win/I’m too young to die, too late to live, as politicians do the thing no God can forgive.”
I was an instant Vice Squad fan after hearing this song back in 1985. Then I became an Adicts fan, too. “Straight Jacket” is a killer song, and I turned it up loud from the get-go. This is a record that really does need to be played very, very loud. Over the first ten years I had it, I did just that.
U.K. Decay and Disorder hold down the fort even though they were lesser-known bands. “For My Country” became a favorite song of mine and “Disorder” is highly listenable. It’s Peter and the Test Tube Babies that steal last half of side one with “Banned from the Pub.” I think I might have been a bit more enamored with them and Adicts because I knew their names already, but there is a reason they were better known that some of these other bands.
The Blitz song at the end of side 1 is kick ass, too. “Someone’s Gonna Die” rocks nice and hard and finishes off side one nicely. Solid all the way across and I didn’t mention Disrupters and Red Alert. Both of their tracks are fantastic, too.
The B Side starts with Dead Kennedys being the only US representative here. “Kill the Poor” is a favorite of mine. I’m sure the kids today will blush a bit, but they probably wouldn’t take the time to really understand the lyrics.
The Partisans’ “Police Story” is a great song. We were just talking about them while on the road last weekend. I often forget how much I like them. Demob is up next, and their song is just okay in comparison to many of the other efforts on Punk and Disorderly. The Insane and Abrasive Wheels are up next with some pretty standard hardcore stuff, but I really like the Chaos U.K. song, “4 Minute Warning.” That one became a favorite of mine and I’m pretty sure I wrote ‘Chaos U.K.’ on a lot of things back in 1985.
“Mania” by Outcasts is pretty underrated. I don’t think I ever heard anything else by them, but I like what they do here. I’m guessing they have at least one good record out there somewhere.
“Race Against Time” is a very cool song by G.B.H. For whatever reason, I never really got into G.B.H. that much. I do like “Race Against Time” a lot and most of the stuff of City Baby’s Revenge are cool. They are also good live, but again, I just never embraced them.
Punk and Disorderly is a truly excellent comp and one of my favorite records from front to back. I still have the OG copy on vinyl and I have it on CD, too. Someday I will turn on my first punk grandkid to it and they’ll be the coolest kid in their friend group when they share it.
Bank on it.
*****
See you tomorrow.
That one time Kandinsky painted a GBH song by AI.
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